seanan_mcguire | Entries tagged with media addict

LJ Messenger.

So I've been experiencing a real uptick recently in people using LJ's internal messaging system to reach me. I don't know why? I don't know if this is a societal switch toward "let's use one site for absolutely everything, always, and if you ever have to switch tags, that's bad," or if LJ has started giving out free kittens with every message sent, or what, but I am here to beg you to please not do that.

One of the functions of my OCD is that I feel compelled to answer all comments that are not somehow covered by comment amnesty, such as being second-level (a reply to one of my replies) or on a post that's connected to the RNG. This can take a long time. I have over 1,300 unanswered comments right now. I do not mind this! Comments are very rarely time-sensitive, and when they are, such as with the WG orders, I either get help or I leave myself a post-it. But this means that anything that's not on those entries just gets buried. Your message can wait up to a year for me to notice it.

Please, if you need to reach me privately, use my website contact form. That's what my website contact form is for. I get all that mail. I read all that mail. I answer most of that mail (some things do not require an answer). I do not overlook that mail for a year. Please, do not message me here, or on Tumblr, or on Facebook. Use my contact form. Please.

Slasher Chicks shirts.

I have answered all currently outstanding inquires, and I still have pretty, pretty Slasher Chicks shirts for sale. So pretty! So totally random in terms of color and size! It's an adventure every time I have to look up a size/color combo, and the adventure can be yours.

Old ARCs.

I have two ARCs of Half-Off Ragnarok left over, and I would like to see them go to a good home where they will be turned into art. People periodically need books for art projects, so...anyone out there looking to do some fun papercrafts and need an ARC or two? Please do not ask if you want to keep the ARCs in book form for reading purposes; I'm looking for people who are looking to make things. US addresses only, since postage is expensive and I'd need to ask you to pay it and ARCs aren't worth it (unless you're emulating a friend of mine and making something like a bridal bouquet out of ARCs, because that's a really important and long-term papercraft, and justifies you paying for postage).

Go ahead and comment on this post if you're interested, so other people can see that the ARCs may have been claimed. Again, please, crafters only.

Media stuff.

Surprisingly good: the movie Big Ass Spider.

Also surprisingly good: Girl Meets World.

...and thus do I summarize my entire experience with media in two three-word titles.

More later, but these are the things that mattered right now!

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: The Last 5 Years, "Nobody Needs to Know."

Shirts.

Okay: it looks like there is sufficient interest in a second run of Wicked Girls shirts, and we will be doing a third run. The ordering period will run from May 31 through June 30, since that may allow me to receive and ship shirts before I leave for six weeks in Europe. (If it does not, we will explore other shipping options, including sending all the stock to Seattle and making Vixy ship it. That way, you should have your shirts before Halloween, which always strikes me as a good goal.) Details will be provided in the ordering post; please don't ask for them here.

Cats.

The cats have almost recovered from my last trip, which is nice. Alice is still prone to flinging herself into my lap while trilling dramatically, and it's rare for me to not have at least two of them in the room. Naturally, this means...

Cons.

...that it's time for me to head out again. I'll be at Phoenix Comic Con next weekend, having a splendid time, and—most exciting of all—performing with Paul and Storm. Yes! I get to perform with them! I am super-excited, and I really can't wait. I hope all of you who have the opportunity will come out and see us.

Albums.

I just sent in a restock of Wicked Girls to CD Baby. I know, right? They're only receiving seven copies, so if you've been waiting for the chance to order one, watch their site over the next week or so. They still have Stars Fall Home in stock, and I'm hoping they'll run out before I leave for Europe, so I can get that restocked as well. They make great gifts!

Posters.

I am still replying to email about posters. I'm about to run out of poster tubes, which is why it's going slowly; I don't want to receive payment and then go "sorry, it'll be a week before I can send you anything." On the plus side, yay demand. On the minus side, I can't magic up postal supplies yet. I do still have posters left, so if you'd been thinking about ordering, feel free to email me.

Godzilla.

I highly recommend the new movie. I have...thoughts...about it, but I really enjoyed every moment that Mr. Zils spent on the screen, King of Monstersing his way around. A+ kaiju would destroy again. Also now I want to write a kaiju novel. Dammit.

Cake Bake Betty.

Their new album, Songs About Teeth, is awesome. Like a femrock Ludo with folk influences.

That is all.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Keane, "Walnut Tree."

I just got home from an afternoon showing of Now You See Me, chosen both because I wanted to see the movie, and because it's a swelteringly hot June day here in Northern California; we were hiding from the sun. A fun little caper movie about magicians robbing banks seemed like just the way to go. Plus, air conditioning.

I got half of what I wanted: I got air conditioning. I will be as spoiler-free as I can, but I am unhappy.

The setup of the movie is thus: four magicians, all of whom are awesome in their solo acts, are Recruited To Do Something. This isn't a spoiler; it's the premise, which leads to them teaming up and being awesome and also robbing banks and shit (all in the trailers). We have a mentalist, a classic slight-of-hand trickster, an escape artist, and a pickpocket/misdirectionist. As they start to do their shit, they are pursued by an FBI agent, an Interpol agent, a professional debunker, and a dude who got robbed.

Of the characters listed above, two are female. They never speak to each other. No, never. No, not even then. There are two secondary female characters, who also never speak to each other (one is there purely to be a pretty status symbol). The female magician is the only one who never gets an awesome moment where her field of magic, her specialization is both key to the plan and saves the day. Literally the first thing one of the other magicians says to her is "you're pretty."

YOU'RE PRETTY.

Now here's the thing: while I disagree that some roles are particularly "gendered," I can accept that right now, in our current media climate, you will want at least 75% of your romances to be between characters of opposite genders. I don't like it, but I will roll with it. And that being said, there was not a single fucking character in this movie who needed to be male. Make the smug team leader a girl, and make the ex-girlfriend an ex-boyfriend! Make the action character a girl (I basically spent every moment one of the magicians was on screen wishing he would turn into Beth Reisgraf). Make more than one important member of your team a fucking female.

And we now stand, again, at the edge of one of my biggest complaints about media today: a team with three men and one women wasn't seen as imbalanced, but the opposite team would have been. It's very possible that even a two-and-two team would have been seen as dominated by women. I am not calling for gender equality in every movie. I saw The Fast and the Furious 6 earlier this month; it was male-dominated, and it was fantastic. Not without its issues—what is?—but well-balanced, casting-wise, with multiple interesting, nuanced female characters who were allowed to interact.

When I go on these "why was so-and-so a guy" rants, someone always says "would you have this complaint if the cast were exactly gender reversed?", and I always say no. I still say no. Because there are so many male-dominated action movies and caper flicks and summer blockbusters that adding a few female-dominated examples would not be "reverse discrimination," it would be balancing the backlog. What I really want is gender neutrality. I want a team of two girls and two guys robbing banks with slight-of-hand and being awesome, rather than another movie that reduces me to a prize or a non-entity.

It's exhausting being this unhappy all the time.

The media won't let me stop.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Godspell, "Light of the World."

I'm just going to get this out of the way before I say anything else:

THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE THE KICKSTARTER FUNDED AND THERE'S GOING TO BE A VERONICA MARS MOVIE!!!!

Ahem. Look, my cat is named "Lilly Kane," there's a signed poster hanging in my guest room, what do you want from me? I wear my geeky heart upon my sleeve. And now, on to the actual substantive post you may have hoped was hiding here. To whit:

Yesterday morning, Rob Thomas, creator of the show Veronica Mars and author of books such as Rats Saw God and Slave Day, announced a Kickstarter to make a Veronica Mars movie. The Kickstarter, which is still going, had a target of two million dollars, with reward levels starting for a $10 donation. Here's a link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project

The Kickstarter raised its first million in four hours. Last night, I watched it click over the two million dollar mark. There was much rejoicing, because dude. Veronica Mars movie. I shrieked, I chair-danced, and all was right with the world...

...only not, because it turns out a lot of people are really perturbed by the fact that a movie which will have corporate backing (Rob Thomas is not the Veronica Mars intellectual property owner, which means Warner Brothers has to be involved) was asking for money on Kickstarter. Mind you, no one held a gun to my head and forced me to fund this project; no one forced me to sit here carefully considering the reward tiers and choosing the one which came with the most awesome swag. No one clicked the button for me. But somehow, my backing this movie has stolen projects from indie artists who really needed it.

And unto this do I say: bullshit.

The world is not a zero-sum game. Yes, if I have one dollar, and I give it to Sunil, I am not going to be able to give it to Vixy. But if I only have one dollar, I'm not giving it to anybody. I'm keeping it for myself, to live. I am an artist and a creator of art, and I know as well as anyone that art is a luxury: art is something that we pay for after we've paid for food and housing and heat in the winter and all the other things that keep our physical bodies going. Yes, I do believe that we need art to live, but that's a spiritual and emotional life, not a "I can no longer breathe because Fringe is off the air" life. They are different.

So let's say that I've paid for my necessities, my survival is assured, and I have a dollar to give to a super-deserving project. Obviously, if I give it to one person, I can't give it to anyone else (although I could give both people fifty cents, but I digress). And you know what? That experimental retelling of The Crucible with sock puppets probably needs my dollar more than the Veronica Mars movie. But I'm paying for my luxuries here. I'm paying for what I want. And what I want is to see Logan, and Veronica, and my fictional friends again. I miss them.

The Veronica Mars movie did not take my dollars away from "more deserving" projects, because no one gets to measure that but the person who holds the dollars. Me. And Sunil, and Chris, and Rae, and every other Veronica Mars fan I know. Rob Thomas did not violate the Kickstarter terms and conditions: I know, I checked. I am not somehow being rooked into paying for something that I will then have to pay for again: I chose a reward level that gave me enough stuff that I felt the price tag was justified (and they did a great job of balancing the rewards; $10 gets you a PDF of the script, and that's reasonable, if you're a fan of the show). Yes, I'll have to pay if I want to see the movie in the theater, but that's paying the theater, which has its own bills to take care of (and will feed me delicious popcorn).

Life is not a zero-sum game. Kickstarter is not a zero-sum game. The money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for Veronica Mars is not the money I am willing to shake out of the couch cushions for anything else. Living in a capitalistic society means I get to pay for what I want, and saying that it was tacky of Rob to even ask, when there was no better funding channel available, is missing the point.

You do not have to want what I want. No one does. But just like I don't get to say "the things you want are worthless and not worth wanting, come want this other thing instead," nobody gets to make that statement to me. And there is nothing that makes "I want two million dollars to make a movie of a TV show that the network canceled, that the studio won't fund, but that the fans adore" any more or less legitimate of a request than anything else. And "Well, what if the studios start holding your shows hostage?" doesn't scare me. I've been waiting to be able to pay for the things I love, to count directly with my dollars, not just as a shadow of a Nielsen household, for a long time.

It's not a zero-sum game. But it's a good one.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: The Dandy Warhols, "We Used to Be Friends."

I love the SyFy Channel Saturday night movies. The goofy effects, the giant monsters, the sometimes wooden acting, it's all a delicious cheese sandwich to help me relax into the one night of the week where I don't feel rushed to accomplish ALL THE THINGS before I go to bed. I try to judge them by what they are, and not by what I want them to be: silly, shitty movies that accomplish what they set out to accomplish, no more, and no less. Sometimes they're even pretty good.

This past week, the Saturday night movie was The End of the World. It was about a group of geeks who owned/worked at a video store specializing in disaster movies, the judgmental SO of the geek who actually owned the store, the faintly evil cousin of the geek who actually owned the store, the disapproving parent of one of the geeks who worked at the store, the disaster guru idol of all the geeks, and a bunch of extras. The extras fell into three categories: evil looters who wanted to take stuff from our heroic geeks, assholes at the mental hospital where the disaster guru had been committed, and people at the military base.

Now. Looking only at what I've written above, how many of these characters were female? If you guessed "judgmental SO" and "disapproving parent," then ding ding ding! We have a winner!

None of the geeks were women. The SO even knowing what the Death Star was called was treated as a virtual miracle, and something so hot as to make the alpha geek temporarily forget about saving the planet, because she was speaking Forbidden Knowledge, yo. She was saying things that implied girls could be geeks too, and man, that was so impossible it was like she was demonstrating super powers! The mother figure was literally introduced calling one of the secondary geeks at work and asking him how the job search was going, because it was time for him to get a real job, in the real world, amirite girls? (The SO had a similar speech.) That's how we should interact with geeks! We should drag them kicking and screaming into respectability, because no one can ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever be happy and fulfilled just being a professional fan of things. And women can't even start being fans of things. It's not allowed.

None of the extras were female. None of the secondary characters, apart from the two listed above, were female. One of the female characters was there to nag and be a burden; the other was there to be a prize and to be enlightened about how Geek Things = Man Things and Man Things = Awesome.

And here's the thing. None of these characters—not a single fucking one—had such a gendered role that their character could not have been played by a member of the opposite sex. Testosterone did not unlock the key to saving the world. Estrogen did not cause the cataclysm. You could have literally flipped a fucking coin for every single role, and cast accordingly. "Whoops, female lead, male antagonist, female love interest..." Better yet, make it a d10, and if you roll a ten, roll again for assigned birth gender, and then go from there. "Female lead, male antagonist, ftm love interest..." It would have been the same damn movie.

But they didn't do that. They went with boys and boys and boys, and an exclusionist narrative that had me saying sadly "I like disaster movies. I exist, too."

I wound up stopping the movie halfway through because the lack of female voices had become so alienating to me that I needed to wait a while before I came back and finished watching. It was an okay movie. I won't be watching it again. There's no one for me there.

Men can identify with women, and should. Women can identify with men, and should. But there's a big difference between saying "Seanan, you should have been able to identify with the struggles of the protagonist, regardless of gender," and saying "Seanan, you should have been able to accept a world that cast your gender into the role of harpy and martinet, and not felt objectified or rejected by this setting." I did identify with Owen. I did care about his story.

It was everything around him that lost me. And honestly, I'm still lost, and I've been lost too many times.

Sometimes it would be nice to be found.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: Glee, "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty."

We have survived the great beast 2012! Hooray and stuff! So here is my post-game commentary.

First, the bad, since there was actually less of it by weight, but what there was colored a lot of things. I did not move to Seattle in 2012. I'm trying really hard. Banks are difficult, and my day job is difficult, and it's all still a work in progress. This doesn't change the fact that by the end of the year, "so when are you moving?" became a question that was guaranteed to make me start a) yelling or b) crying. Sometimes it's really hard to live in a fishbowl, and when I don't have something I really, really want, and people keep asking about it...that's one of those times. So until I say "this is a thing that is happening, it has worked out with the bank and with my current housemate and with my job," please don't ask.

I developed a severe issue with my left foot in 2012. It's called "plantar fasciitis," and it basically means "screaming pain every time I put my foot down." This is a problem, especially since I walk both for exercise and for recreation, which has had to be cut way, way back, due to the whole "screaming pain" thing. This is negatively impacting my fitness, which I don't like. I'm doing what my doctor tells me and I don't need help, but it's bad, and it means that sometimes, I walk on a cane or not at all.

Now, the good. I went to Disneyland twice! I saw the largest intact Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the world! I went to Maine! Basically, through these things combined, it was a damn good year. I got Vixy into pin collecting, which gave me someone to collect pins with (always good). I saw amazing movies and watched a lot of TV, and I don't even know how many books I read. So many books. Truly we live in a magical time.

Oh, and I won a Hugo for never shutting up. I make a wish on it every night. (Yes, sometimes I wish on my Hugo to win a Hugo for Blackout. I never said I was reasonable.)

Publishing-wise, I couldn't tell you how much I wrote in 2012, because I seriously lost count, but I released five books: Discount Armageddon, Blackout, Ashes of Honor, Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, and When Will You Rise. I had my first reprint, "Lost", and my first reprint-in-a-book, "Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage." It was a pretty slow year for me with short fiction, but there were some pieces I'm really proud of, like "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats", and "In Sea-Salt Tears." I finished nine Velveteen stories, which is three more than the six I promised in 2011. It was a good writing year.

I'm excited about 2013, in all the ways. I'm going to spend my birthday in Disneyland. Wreck-It Ralph is coming out on DVD. And we're spinning our way around the sun again.

Whee!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Nick Cave, "Red Right Hand."

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag. )

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Glee, "Uptown Girl."

Things are insane around here (which is ironic, given that I'm finally between conventions), so here are the updates and events du jour, presented in convenient bite-sized fashion.

Science Crawl.
Tomorrow night (Friday, November 4th) the Bay Area Science Crawl will be at Borderlands Books from 7:15 until 8:15 PM. Quote: "The Bay Area Science Festival is proud to present the first ever Sci-Crawl, a coordinated takeover of venues throughout San Francisco’s Mission District, showcasing the science inherent in the neighborhood." I'll be appearing as Mira on a panel discussing the Science of Science Fiction, along with Jeff Carlson and Scott Sigler, and moderated by Brian Malow. The event is free, and should be super-fun. Come and join the geek!

Dental horrors.
Yesterday, I had dental surgery. Yes, again. This time, I managed to somehow break a titanium post inside my mouth. SUPER FUN. Without going into details, largely because they would freak me out, I shall simply say that I am rarely given that many pharmaceuticals during a twenty-four hour period, and I can still taste colors. No fun at all. I basically lost a day and a half to a great gray pit.

T-shirt mailing.
According to my spreadsheet, there are still over a hundred shirts that have not been introduced to envelopes. Over a hundred means that one in three, roughly, has not been mailed. Unless you have reason to think that gnomes have stolen the contents of your mailbox, please don't email yet asking where, specifically, your shirt is located. I'm packing and mailing them just as fast as I possibly can, and this being such a manual process means that it's very hard to track specific list items. Also, because there is such a variance of colors and styles, sometimes the only way to find a shirt is to remove all the shirts around it, which makes it impossible to go "oh, you mean this one? Yeah, it's right here." So I plead for patience. All you do by poking without good cause is make me, and Deborah, sad and grumpy.

Cats.
We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of Alice getting so very, very sick, and she has realized that this means she can basically get away with anything, just by doing while Not Being Sick. This morning, she hit my abdomen like a fuzzy bowling ball, shoved her wet feet up my nose, and trilled happily, only to receive hugs and love, because She Wasn't Sick. Am I setting a bad precedent? Yeah, probably. Do I care? Not one damn bit. Alice isn't sick, and that's really what I need out of life.

Television.
All the shows are coming back on the air. ALL THE SHOWS. Bones starts up again tonight, and I'm gamely plugging through season two of Criminal Minds, which means I may be catching up to watching it live before too much longer. It may seem counter-productive to watch this much TV while also trying to get writing done, but it actually speeds me up, by giving me something to finish for. Speaking of which...

Writing.
Ashes of Honor is done, and I'm getting ready to go into draft two. Midnight Blue-Light Special is finally moving at what I'd call a reasonable pace, and I'm about a quarter of the way through the projected text. And there are various other projects kicking around, including the second installment of the latest Vel story, which will take us to four for the year I can so make my goal. Hah.

Zombies.
Are love.

Current Mood: rushed
Current Music: Trucks going by outside.

A movie called Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was released recently. It's a classic "boy meets girl, boy fights girl's seven evil exes to keep girl, boy learns important life lessons through kicking ass" story, told with all the manic intensity of a Nintendo game on Red Bull and speed. Is it perfect? No. There are probably things that could have been done better, or at least differently, without changing the movie into something that it didn't want to be. But it's good. It's quirky and strange and wild and totally new; it's something we've only ever seen before if, say, we ate a dozen Krispie Kreme donuts before challenging our boyfriends to an all-night Super Mario 3 game session that ended with sweaty sugar-buzz groping on the living room couch.

For example. And even then, it was a hallucination, whereas Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is something you can show to other people.

Sadly, when the opening weekend box office for Scott Pilgrim was reported, it was well below industry expectations, and the movie was promptly written off as a flop. It doesn't matter if it makes back its budget and more on DVD; it failed. It didn't bring in big bucks in the theater. The same thing happened to Slither, which has been one of my favorite movies of all time basically since the first commercial aired. Bad box office, great DVD sales, game over. (And yes, opening week matters. It's incredibly rare for something to have sales that climb after the opening rush has passed, which is why, weirdly, it's important to be a part of that initial rush, if you can. That initial rush is what tells the accountants "this is going to be okay.")

A lot of people said a lot of things when the numbers for Scott Pilgrim started coming in, and what a lot of them said boiled down to, "Why do you care?" You are not, after all, involved with writing, producing, marketing, or selling the movie; you're just a consumer. The movie was there to be consumed, you consumed it, now move on. And to a degree, they're right. No one can ever take Slither away from me; all the bad box office in the world can't keep Scott Pilgrim out of my DVD collection once it's released in a purchasable format. So why do I care?

I care because we're not going to get another movie like Scott Pilgrim any time soon. I care because Slither tanking at the box office is why we had to wait five years for Zombieland. I care because all entertainment is profit-driven, and when we don't put our quarters in the plastic pony, it stops bucking.

Why do book series end in the middle? Because not enough people bought the books. Sometimes they can live on, as with

tim_pratt's online serialization of his fabulous Marla Mason stories, but for the majority of authors, if the sales aren't there, the story's over. Why do midlist authors disappear? Because their sales weren't good enough to justify their continued publication. Why are TV shows canceled? Because not enough people gave money to their advertisers. All entertainment is profit-driven. We pay to play, and when we stop paying, they stop playing.

Scott Pilgrim is important because it's a weird, wacky, wonderful movie, and it's going to be a long time before we see something else like it. Next time you love something weird, wacky, and wonderful—whether it's a movie, a TV show, or a book—remember the lesson of Scott Pilgrim, and the eighth evil ex: the box office. In this economy, it's more important than ever that we kick its ass.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Rachel Sage, "93 Maidens."

Mary Robinette Kowal—who is fantastic and awesome and incidentally, the person reading the Toby Daye audio books, which means hers is a voice I'm going to be hearing quite a lot of—made a blog post previewing the upcoming fantasy movies of 2010. It's a good post, which is no surprise, since she's a good author and a great lady. But one line, talking about Disney's upcoming Rapunzel, sort of hit me the wrong way:

"Hey! Disney's doing another classic fairy tale. While I could wish that the princess here weren't your cliche blond, I also have to acknowledge that this is true to the Brothers Grimm story."

I'm blonde. This is a choice now, since I'm old enough to dye my hair, but when I was first forming my self-image, it was just a biological reality. I've spent my entire life being bombarded with Barbie and bimbo stereotypes, from Kelly Bundy on Married...With Children to an endless procession of evil stepmothers and nasty girlfriends on the silver screen. That wasn't always the case; "America's sweethearts" used to be almost exclusively blonde girls, who might not be smart or independent, but they were plucky and beautiful and they got the guy, so hey, let's rock with that, okay? But the age of the blonde as leading lady ended before I was born, and except for Barbie—who seems to be basically unkillable—it hasn't really shown much sign of coming back. Gwen Stacy was replaced by Mary Jane. Supergirl's comic got canceled on a regular basis. Maybe it's because all the science fiction I watched was supposed to be about the male hero, so they didn't want to make the women too "flashy," but all the smart, interesting, active women on television seemed to be brunette...unless they were all about their sexy hot bodies of sexy hotness, in which case, they could be blonde, but don't forget, unless you're hot and blonde, you don't count.

Growing up, I was able to find exactly three smart, blonde, accessible fictional characters to idolize as role models: Marilyn Munster from The Munsters, Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four, and Terra of the Teen Titans. Terra eventually turned out to be totally evil (and hence got dropped from the list), only to be replaced by Illyana Rasputin, who...promptly died. Whoops. Marilyn and Sue endured, and even if Sue was occasionally a soccer mom, they remained blonde and awesome. (Marilyn was also the first firm indication I got that it was okay to like monsters and frilly pink dresses. I owe a lot to Marilyn Munster.) Like every kid, I wanted some reassurance that I was okay the way I was, and a lot of what I got from the media was that I would only be okay if I either suffered severe head trauma or dyed my hair.

This? Sucked.

The ongoing transition of the blonde from girl-next-door and America's sweetheart has continued, and now she's not just the bimbo, she's the bad guy. I started making lists of movies and television shows with blonde characters, and nine times out of ten, if you have a blonde at all, she's evil. If she's not evil, the bad guy? Is also blonde. Movies that break this trend: Legally Blonde (where all the blondes are presented as well-meaning ditzes who are smart despite the satin-finish manicures, or dumb but sweet), and Jennifer's Body (where Needy is Hollywood ugly-pretty, and plays the foil to an evil brunette sexpot). There are more blondes on television (thank you, Veronica Mars, thank you), but they're still very rare in-genre, and there, they're usually cannon fodder.

And then there are the princesses. See, the reason this comment bothered me in the first place is that I've heard it before, many times. "Oh, at least Disney's new princess isn't blonde." "Oh, it looks insipid, but at least the princess isn't blonde." Well, excluding animals (so Nala doesn't count), there have been four blonde Disney protagonists: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice, and Eilonwy. Oh, and Tinker Bell, who sort of exists in her own little bubble. The most recent of these characters, Eilonwy, was created in 1985, when The Black Cauldron flopped at a theater near you. Prior to that, we had Sleeping Beauty in 1959. Princesses/protagonists in the last twenty years have been brunette (Belle, Jane), black haired (Jasmine, Pocahontas, Esmerelda, Mulan, Lilo, Nani, Tiana), redheads (Megara), or white haired (Kida). (Ariel just misses this cut, as The Little Mermaid came out in 1989. Redheads are really under-represented, by the way, unless you count Giselle from Enchanted and Penny from Bolt, and then they just wind up in the boat with the blondes.)

Blonde girls deserve a smart, savvy, modern Disney princess with agency. We didn't use up all our princesses when we got Cinderella and Aurora, and the fact that they left Alice blonde doesn't make up for turning Dorothy brunette. So instead of wishing this princess weren't blonde, how about we say "yay, about time," and keep making it okay for blonde girls to be smart, just like everybody else?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Me and Jeff, "Protective Coloration."

Well, I'm home sick today, currently presenting two out of the five primary symptoms of streptococcal sore throat. (Quoth my mother, "Honey, you are the only person I know who says 'Mommy, I've got strep' by announcing that you're presenting primary symptoms of something I can't pronounce.") Big fun for the whole family! For the morbidly curious, I'm feeling deeply unwell, have marked swelling of the throat and tonsils, difficulty swallowing, tender lymph nodes, and so much red inflammation that I look like one of my own manuscripts post-editing pass. Not much fun.

In an effort to make myself feel better, I've been catching up on some of the television that's been building up while I was off doing other things, like writing, editing, and attempting to have a life. Well, let's see. How about The Eleventh Hour? Crazy science always makes me feel better! Yeah! And this episode is about...

...smallpox getting loose in Philadelphia. Right. Well, now that I'm sick and deeply disturbed, what about watching some ReGenesis? Originally created for Canadian television, ReGenesis really seems to have been created with me in mind, since it's sort of a crazy cross between Numb3rs and House, only instead of fighting either crime or weird medicine, they fight genetic crime and monstrosities of science. ReGenesis will make me feel better! And the first episode of season one is about...

...a horrible hybrid of camel pox and Ebola getting loose in Canada. Right.

I'm going back to bed.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Lilly purring reassuringly to lure me to the bed.

So I was asked today how I could possibly watch as much television as I claim, given how much I write. The implication was, of course, that I'm exercising hyperbole in my description of my television-viewing habits. So, in the interests of full disclosure, here are the shows that I currently watch:

* America's Next Top Model. Not only do I have no shame, I enjoy watching -- and mocking -- Tyra's slow descent into madness. I seriously think she's been eating lead paint for the last five years, or something. It's soothing reality madness. Kate and I get together once a week to mock it.

* Bones. Hot actors, snappy dialog, and dead stuff. Really, I am a simple creature, easily brought over to the cause of darkness by offers of dead stuff.

* Dexter. I loved the first two seasons, I loved the first two books. I hated the third book, so now I'm praying that the show's departure from the text continues in a big, big way. I want to stay in love with my show. I really, really do.

* Eureka. Mad science? I am so there.

* Fringe. I haven't actually seen the first episode yet -- that's happening tomorrow -- but I'm planning on watching at least the first month, just to figure out whether or not I want to make a commitment.

* Heroes. I'm still catching up on the end of season two, but I'm primed and ready for season three. No spoilers, please!

* NCIS. Nothing says 'love' like perky goth forensic technicians who can kill you and leave behind absolutely no evidence to indicate that they did it. I love this show. It has guns.

* Numb3rs. Math and hot mathematicians and more guns and it's basically just the happiest hour on television that doesn't feature dinosaurs.

* Primeval. The happiest hour on television that does feature dinosaurs.

* Supernatural. This show was actually designed especially for me. It's fantastic that they're somehow prying it out of my dreams and putting it on cable for everyone else to see, but really, they made this show just to make me happy. Which it does, reliably.

* True Blood. Only one episode so far, but man, am I digging what I'm getting. I hope it maintains or improves on this quality level; if it does, it's going to be just amazing.

Shows I love, and watch religiously, but which are neither currently on the air or starting a season in the next month: Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Middleman. Shows which I love, and watch religiously, but which are finishing their seasons: Monk, Psych. So yes, I watch a lot of television.

How about you?

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Susan Egan, 'I Won't Say.'

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Seanan McGuire Online

January 2024

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Page Summary

A few quick things from the management (IE, me).
Bits and pieces and things and stuff.
More marginalization of women in media.
Life is not a zero-sum game: the VERONICA MARS movie and Kickstarter.
The endless alienation of media.
Welp. It's a new year.
The periodic welcome post.
Bits and pieces to update the world.
Why Scott Pilgrim is important (voting with your dollars).
In defense of the blonde: one Marilyn's plea.
Home sick, television not helping.
Ah, ye of little faith.

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Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

The Journal of Seanan McGuire

Entries tagged with media addict

A few quick things from the management (IE, me).

Bits and pieces and things and stuff.

More marginalization of women in media.

Life is not a zero-sum game: the VERONICA MARS movie and Kickstarter.

The endless alienation of media.

Welp. It's a new year.

The periodic welcome post.

Bits and pieces to update the world.

Why Scott Pilgrim is important (voting with your dollars).

In defense of the blonde: one Marilyn's plea.

Home sick, television not helping.

Ah, ye of little faith.